Man-reviewing Facebook groups have landed in Europe

We know them all: Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Lovoo, OkCupid, and even Meetic. Every year the online dating industry churns out a new option for singles looking for love, but in recent times the roles seem to have been reversed. There are already numerous Facebook groups - the names of which we will not divulge as we want to preserve their secrecy - in which dating app users can share or read reviews of the men they meet online, signaling those who are dangerous or to be avoided. A gimmick born in New York in March last year that has recently arrived in Europe as well, these groups mainly consist of cis and straight women, who anonymously post a screenshot of the online profile of the guy they are chatting with together with a caption of a few words, inserting either the now popular emoji of a red flag or "any tea?". If they are lucky, those who have already had dealings with the man in question respond in the comments, describing the experience they had. 

Although articles reporting on the trend have pointed out a marked ethical impropriety in disclosing photographs of people without their consent, judging these pages as a new devilry of "surveillance culture", and how scrolling between posts is mainly an amusing pastime, it is clear that these pages have been devised by women as an alternative method of protecting each other. In the past, there have been many protective policies put in place by Western countries to protect women's safety, such as posters in English pub toilets suggesting women "ask for Angela" from the barman in case they feel in danger on a first date, or #signalforhelp, the internationally known symbol to highlight a domestic violence situation. This new idea of reviewing men online joins the camaraderie operations implemented by women on social media in recent years, as an extreme solution to the dramatic situation that pervades the world of online dating. Before these groups, there have been other ingenious ways to discover cheating men, such as videos unmasking husbands in the company of another woman, which has gone viral to get to their wives, or those of girls who, after discovering they were a lover and not a girlfriend, leave their hair accessories lying around in the cheater's bathroom.

In an interview with Dazed, one user explained the value of being part of these groups. «Being able to potentially find out something about a guy before you meet him so that you don't unknowingly put yourself in danger, is amazing.» Among the stories recounted in these forums are indeed dark events, such as those of girls who have been victims of violence or sexual abuse. In addition, to set themselves a purely precautionary purpose, the administrators of these groups carefully try to control unjustified defamation actions. To join the group, one has to pass a screening and then follow strict rules, including refraining from commenting on the physical appearance of those being questioned. Hate speech, bullying, or sharing personal information are not accepted. "This group is a place where women can protect and empower other women by warning them of men who may be liars, cheaters, or display any kind of abusive or dangerous behavior," reads one of the pages in their information bio. 

The strong sisterhood that binds the members of these pages and the gruesome amount of unseemly incidents recounted in the comments make one believe that this new idea is really useful, even for a country like Italy. According to ISTAT research, in Italy 31.5% of women aged between 16 and 70 have suffered some form of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, the most serious forms of which have been perpetrated by partners, relatives, or friends, while according to a survey by the Center for Economics and Business Research, Italy is one of the most active European countries on dating sites, with Rome as the city with the highest number of users. In 2022, there were about 8.9 million active profiles across the Country. After ghosting, bread-crumbing, orbiting, and situashionship, perhaps the time has come for Italy to also adopt this new American trend in its encyclopedia of online dating.